


Anonymity

by Trialia



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Bujold
Genre: Intersexuality, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-17
Updated: 2010-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-07 08:37:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trialia/pseuds/Trialia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bel's identity has changed again, but that isn't exactly the crisis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anonymity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ilthit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/gifts).



> Beta-read by Kalina (kikibug13). Contains major spoilers for _Mirror Dance_ and some for _Diplomatic Immunity_. Written for Hyel in the help_haiti auction.

It could have been a strange identity crisis imposed on a person, the question of how to identify oneself when born a hermaphrodite, Bel thought. Had been, for a time. Bel had chosen, years ago, to give up dwelling on the matter. Teen angst wouldn't serve much purpose.

_In my head, I'm just me. Just Bel Thorne, Capt- stop that thought – just Bel. Doesn't matter if people call me "it" like I'm back on Beta and use the word like an object - why be offended by that? I know I'm not, and they know I'm not. That's all that matters._

Bel'd never said that out loud to anyone but Mother. Sure as hell wasn't about to say it to Miles, not at this stage in things. Of course he was curious - curious about everything except trying the one option Bel wanted him most to explore, sadly, but monosexuality wasn't a big deal.

Letting Miles in that deep? Ah, that would have been.

_If only._

And now, another change of identity. Captain of the _Ariel_ no longer.

On the cards? Who knew?

Return to Beta Colony was an option, but was a home it might truly have grown out of, through war and time and travel and growth, really a home?

It had to go, though. To find somewhere, anywhere else to go but here; its only true heart's-home, now lost through its own … not stupidity: gullibility, naïveté, idealism...

Outside Beta and a few old Dendarii (who could not, now, have it), Bel couldn't be sure anyone would welcome it home. (And again, not, perhaps, even Beta.)

Where to go?

Too many goodbyes had been forced, yet there were more ahead. Bel knew that.

_It's all over, now. You have to go somewhere. You've paid a price. And not only with lives._

What coin will repay that? Ah, that's another story. Again: who knows?

_What happens next is up to you. Same as everything else._

**Author's Note:**

> If you're unfamiliar with the canon, Bel Thorne's birth culture tends to use "hermaphrodite" rather than the more common, in real life, term "intersex". It's used to agree with canon, not to cause offence to people who dislike the term. Betan hermaphrodites are genetically engineered, and designed to be fully capable of reproduction with either set of genitalia.


End file.
